Valiant India go down to Egypt 0-1 in MWG Football quarters

Published: Wednesday, October 17, 2007, 12:38 [IST]

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Hyderabad, Oct 16 (UNI) Valiant India conceded an extra-time goal to go down 0-1 to formidable Egypt in the quarter-final and bow out of men's football competition of the 4th Military World Games here today.

In what could have been the biggest upset of the tournament had the Indians won, the hosts played their hearts out against their fancied opponents, who are the last Games' runners-up, but ran out of steam in the extra time to concede a goal in 101st minute.

Abdul Naser found the target for the African country after the two sides were locked goalless in the regulation time.

Despite the loss, the Indians should held their heads high considering that they scraped through the last eight stage after a narrow victory over Afghanistan in their last league match while, their today's rivals were the toppers in their group without any loss, besides being the second best team in the last Military World Games in Catania (Italy) in 2003.

In the group stage, India had lost to Brazil and Qatar before beating Afghanistan 1-0.

In another quarter-final match today, Cameroon blanked Guinea Republic 3-0 to book a last four berth.

Qatar play Ireland while defending champions North Korea take on Brazil in the other quarter-finals.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan PDM Wickramasingh fetched the first gold for her country by winning women's 400m final in 52.93 sec. Elena Ildeikina (54.78s) of Russia and Josephine Nyarunda (54.88s) of Kenya took silver and bronze respectively.

As for the Indians, medal hopeful and international SK Mortaza qualified for the men's 400m final after finishing third in a semi-final race while another international Sarish Paul came a disappointing sixth in a field of eight athletes in the other semi-final race and failed to make it to the finals.

Mortaza ran his season's best of 46.5sec behind Mark Mutai (46.00) of Kenya and PS Amarasekara (46.20) of Sri Lanka. He bettered his mark of 47.42sec which he ran in the Pune leg of Asian Grand Prix in June.

Paul, who ran the season's best (46.77s) among Indian's in Hyderabad in April could only run 47.2 seconds today behind five others, among whom Ali Baba Bakar of Sudan was the best with 45.9sec.

In men's 1500m, another Indian medal prospect Chatholi Hamza (3: 49.36) finished second behind Kenyan Korir Shadrack (3:48.50) in the heats to qualify for the finals.

Hamza's timing was though well below his season's best mark of 3:40.19 which he recorded in Bangkok leg of Asian Grand prix in June.